Malpractice in Maggody

by Joan Hess

  “Vince will find someone. He always does.” Randall wondered why Vince had found Brenda Skiller to begin with. She had a degree in psychology, but in his opinion, she was a certifiable flake. The obscure college she’d attended lacked accreditation, due to its rather unique approach to psychology. Classes were not offered in such standard areas as developmental, behavioral, and abnormal psych, but instead in reflexology, hypnotherapy, high colonics, sensory deprivation, and other scientifically dubious fields. It was not challenging to understand why Brenda had a history of employment with institutes that were regularly closed down by the authorities because of charges of fraud, exploitation, and in a few cases, manslaughter caused by physical abuse and malnutrition. Brenda herself had never been accused of complicity, but neither had low-ranked enlisted men at internment camps.

  “Then you agree with me?” she said shrilly.

  Randall realized he hadn’t been listening, but he knew there was no point in arguing with her over trivial issues. “Whatever you say, Brenda.”

  “So I’ll see you Thursday at noon so we can do a final inspection and start the training regime. Everything must be spotless and functioning smoothly. I’ll tackle the maids and orderlies at seven a.m. Friday, while you inventory the contents of the drug cabinets and examination rooms. Once Vince arrives, he can deal with the surgical supplies. I myself will unpack and organize the supplements.”

  “Thursday, at noon,” Randall repeated.

  “You should leave your house no later than seven-thirty, to allow time to stop for coffee or whatever.” She paused, then took a breath. “Have you heard from Walter Kaiser?”

  “Should I have heard from him?”

  “Of course not. It’s just that his telephone in Taos has been disconnected, and I thought maybe he’d contacted you.”

  “You’re the one who hired him, Brenda. I’ve never even spoken to him.” Randall gazed at the TV screen, which was still flickering. “If that’s all…?”

  “I suppose so,” she said. “I mean, I was just sitting here, thinking about the enormity of this project, and I couldn’t keep myself from wondering if we know what we’re getting into. Will the state licensing board schedule inspections, or will they send spies to investigate us? We don’t know anything about the backgrounds of the staff. What if one of them is working undercover? Just because Vince swears none of them speaks English, he has no way of knowing. How did he find them?”

  “Go make yourself a cup of tea. Everything will be fine.” Randall hung up the phone, wishing he believed his own words. After a few minutes of brooding, he slapped together a sandwich and returned to watch John Wayne slaughter another platoon of Japanese soldiers.

  Walter Kaiser made one telephone call, but it was to a pizza delivery place. He was at that moment enjoying free room and board in Amarillo, Texas, courtesy of the local constabulary.

  3

  Ruby Bee and Estelle had been disappointed (or even pissed, some might say) when I’d reported my failure to uncover whatever dark secrets lurked behind the red brick wall. I’d told them enough about my vacation with Jack to keep them appeased for the most part, although they continued to toss out artfully ingenuous questions in hopes of catching me off guard. The score was fairly even, and at least I was eating well.

  On Monday morning I declared myself back on duty and turned on the air conditioner at the PD. After a few rumbles, it sputtered out gasps of cool, if not arctic, air. I looked over the accumulation of mail I’d left on my desk, then tossed it into the wastebasket and called the sheriff’s office to let Harve know I was back.

  “Why, Arly,” cooed LaBelle, “I reckon you must have some stories to tell after that camping trip with your friend. How was it?”

  “Fine. Is Harve there?”

  “I disrecollect your friend’s name, but isn’t he the fellow from Springfield who was caught up with that cult at the church camp? Called themselves Moonbeams, didn’t they?”

  “He wasn’t really involved,” I said. “I’d like to speak to Harve, if you don’t mind. Official business and all that.”

  LaBelle’s voice dropped, and I could almost hear her false eyelashes fluttering. “Did you find out what’s going on out there at the old folks’ home? My ex-sister-in-law says she heard it’s gonna be an insane asylum for criminals and perverts. I don’t know how any of you will be able to sleep at night, knowing one of them could escape and come murder you in your bed. I’d be sleeping with a shotgun under my pillow.”

  “I’m sure you would, LaBelle,” I said with a hint of exasperation in my voice. “Is Harve there or not?”

  “Don’t you go getting all snooty with me, Arly Hanks! Here I am trying to make polite conversation, and all you see fit to do is keep harping to speak to Sheriff Dorfer, who is a very busy man. I’ve a mind to hang up on you right this minute.”

  I bit down on my lip for a moment, then said, “If I have to drive all the way to Farberville in order to speak to the very busy man, I’ll be in a real bad mood when I get there. Now what’s it going to be, LaBelle?”

  I was immediately put on hold. I took a catalog out of the wastebasket, knowing LaBelle was liable to let me wait for a long time before she put me through to Harve. This particular catalog was clearly for gun lovers, or for those who were planning to barricade themselves in shacks and caves to prepare for the invasion of Darth Vader and his storm troopers. I was not quite so paranoid, and had a distaste for guns in general. Which was good, since I kept my official handgun and a box with three bullets in a locked cabinet in the back room. The city council keeps me on a miserly budget. Every once in a while I show up at a meeting to plead for a box of paperclips or a new windshield wiper blade for my police car, but the outcome’s always a toss-up.

  Harve came on the line eventually. “Don’t tell me you’re calling about the old folks’ home,” he began sourly.

  “Well, no, but now that you brought it up,” I said, “I would like to know what’s going on.”

  “You and everybody else west of the Mississippi. All I can say is that the county commissioners decided it was costing too much to operate, so they sold it to some corporation out in California. Rumor has it some money changed hands under the table to grease the deal. It was approved after one reading, since nobody knew enough to offer any opposition.”

  “That’s all you know? Some California corporation?”

  Harve paused, most likely to light one of his cheap cigars. “To be real candid, Arly, I don’t really give a damn. It’s private property. So I heard you camped out at Tablerock with that fellow from Springfield. I’ve been trying for years to convince Mrs. Dorfer that we ought to rent a cabin up there for a few days. Was the fishing any good?”

  “It’s hard to say. We spent most of our time collecting specimens of bracken and liverworts. I just called to let you know that I’m back.”

  “There’s nothing like a thick liverwurst sandwich with a hunk of yellow cheese, a slice of red onion, a juicy dill pickle, and a cold beer to liven up a ball game on TV on a Saturday afternoon. Hold on a minute—I’ve got something for you to look into. It’s on my desk somewhere. Ya know, no matter how many times I tell LaBelle not to come in here and start straightening up my—yeah, here it is.” He cleared his throat. “Albert Quivers, lives out past Belle Star on Pipple Road, reported that somebody’s been stealing his catfish. He was real steamed about it, threatening to let his dogs run loose if we couldn’t do anything. I’ve seen those dogs with my own eyes, and they’re right mean ones.”

  I made a face at the water stain on the ceiling directly above me. “And you want me to go out there and investigate stolen catfish. Should I take my gun or a box of dog biscuits?”

  “I’d take both if I was you. Just go out there in the next day or two and look around. Get what you can from Quivers, write up a report, and send it over here.”

  “How many catfish are we talking about, Harve—and how many dogs? Why don’t you send Les or one of the other deputies
out there?”

  “Three, maybe four dogs, and I don’t know how many catfish. It’s either this one or a case of alleged embezzlement by the choir director at the Mount Zion Holy Church in Hogeye. They’re so riled up over there that it might take weeks to get it sorted out. It’s a mite conservative, so you’d better buy yourself some pantyhose and see if you can borrow a skirt from Mrs. Jim Bob. What’s it going to be?”

  “You’re a colossal pain in the ass, Harve.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  I hung up and rocked back in my cane-bottomed chair, wondering how long it would take to cram everything back into the duffel bag, buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter at the supermarket, and then head for the hills. Or the lake.

  Kevin Buchanon was doing his best to stack up rolls of paper towels at Jim Bob’s SuperSaver Buy 4 Less when Idalupino snuck up behind him and pinched his butt. All the rolls went tumbling to the floor as he whipped around. “You jest keep your hands to yourself,” he sputtered, so outraged that his Adam’s apple rippled as if he’d swallowed an oversized beetle. “I am a married man.”

  “Your wife’s on the phone, shrieking like a castrated pig. She called on the pay phone up front. All I can say is you’d better not let Jim Bob catch you. He damn near bit my head off when I had to take a potty break. It’s not like I had any choice, since I have a urinary tract infection. But he wouldn’t even let me explain.”

  Kevin hurried to the pay phone and grabbed the receiver, which was dangling almost to the floor. “Dahlia, my sweetness, what’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “Yes, I’m sick to death of my granny! You know what she did, Kevvie? She decided to give the twins a bath, so she started running water in the tub. They hid, just like they always do, and by the time she’d dragged them from under the porch, there was water all over the floors, even in the living room. Now the twins are so filthy that you can’t tell ’em apart, and my back is killin’ me on account of having to mop up the water. Meanwhile, Granny went off to pick blackberries.”

  He glanced at the clock above the exit. “Gee, honeybunch, I’d come home and help, but I don’t get off till five. Jim Bob’s liable to blow his stack if I leave early. He’s still pissed on account of I dropped a case of vinegar and the whole store stinks like a pickle factory.”

  “You got to do something,” wailed Dahlia. “I can’t go on like this.”

  “Did you call my ma?” he asked timidly.

  “She told me to deal with it myself. I ask you, Kevvie—is that anything to say to the mother of her grandbabies? You’d have thought I was a stranger at her back door, begging for food and a place to sleep.”

  Kevin wasn’t real surprised, since as far as he could tell, Dahlia had been calling his ma four or five times a day to complain about something. “Don’t you worry,” he said in his most manly voice. “When I git home, I’ll hose off the twins and see to the floors. Should I bring a bucket of fried chicken from the deli?”

  “You know perfectly well we can’t afford it, Kevin Fitzgerald Buchanon! If you don’t get a raise from Jim Bob, I don’t know what we’re gonna do. My granny’s scrawny, but she eats like a horse. I caught her gnawing on raw potatoes this morning, and poor little Kevvie Junior and Rose Marie ain’t had so much as a cookie since she moved back in with us. She steals the whole package and creeps off behind the house.”

  “I gotta go,” Kevin said as he spotted Jim Bob glaring at the rolls of paper towels scattered all over the floor. “I’ll be home shortly after five.” Despite her protest, he hung up the receiver and ducked down the cereal aisle. He wasn’t any happier than Dahlia about her granny moving in with them, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it. He couldn’t drag her to the pound and have her put to sleep with all the other strays.

  Mebbe, he thought, Arly would know what to do. After all, she was the chief of police, and Dahlia’s granny was clearly disturbing the peace. That was a crime, as he well knew after he’d drunk a pint jar of Raz’s moonshine during a high school football game and chased two of the cheerleaders all the way to the girls’ locker room. They’d barricaded themselves inside all night, or so he’d been told.

  When Jim Bob got home from the supermarket late that afternoon, he found Mrs. Jim Bob seated at the dinette. She didn’t seem to be doing anything, he noted warily as he opened the refrigerator and took out a beer. Her lips were tight, though, which meant she was brooding about something. He hoped it wasn’t about where to put in a swimming pool. He knew damn well she wouldn’t be appeased with one of those aboveground jobs, neither. Hell, she was probably thinking about landscaping the yard all the way down to the road.

  “What’s for supper?” he asked.

  “Leftovers.”

  “Since you haven’t bothered to fix anything for three days, that’d be leftover leftovers, wouldn’t it? If you’d wanted me to bring home something from the deli, all you had to do was call.” He edged toward the hall. “That’s not saying I mind having leftovers. It’s just getting kind of boring, having the same thing for supper every night.”

  She turned her beadiest stare on him. “How many times do I have to tell you, our meal in the evening is dinner, not supper. Common folks have supper. What’s more, if you don’t like what I’m serving, you can take your sorry self down to Ruby Bee’s and sop up some grease with one of her so-called biscuits. I don’t understand why you think I should be slaving away in a hot kitchen all day when Maggody is at risk.”

  “At risk of what?”

  “If I knew, I’d be the first to tell you. There’s something wicked going on out there at the old folks’ home. When I drive by, I can feel Satan’s breath on the back of my neck, and there’s a stench of sulphur in the air.” She sat back, her arms crossed and her face as hard as granite. “As the mayor, it’s your duty to send Arly to investigate. That’s what she gets paid for, isn’t it?”

  “She tried, same as I did, but the spic don’t speak English and the dog growls like a rabid coon. She can’t just shoot them. The construction looks to be pretty much finished. Somebody will move in, and then we’ll know. Maybe you and the ladies of the Missionary Society can drop by to welcome them and visit for a spell.”

  Mrs. Jim Bob didn’t actually growl, but the sound was unsettling. “Are you suggesting that we walk up the driveway and knock on the devil’s door?”

  He headed for the living room. “Call me when supper—I mean dinner—is on the table. I can hardly wait for some more of your tuna casserole.”

  “Just what have you been up to these last few days?” demanded Ruby Bee as I sat down at the bar. “I am sick and tired of making you sandwiches and watching you sashay out the door without so much as a word of explanation. Does this have something to do with that man from Springfield? Are you going up there on the sly?”

  “No,” I said wearily as I unpinned my badge and stuck it in my pocket so all the criminals would realize that they’d have to wait for the time being. “I’ve spent the last three days trying to talk to a man in Belle Star. And if catfish is on the menu tonight, I’m going into Farberville for a pizza. Maybe I will, anyway, and then go to a movie.”

  “What were you doin’ in Belle Star?” asked Estelle, who could probably hear a squirrel sneeze on Cotter’s Ridge.

  “Theft, but you don’t want to hear the details. What’s for supper? Fried chicken?”

  Ruby Bee was still watching me, her eyes flickering with suspicion. “So you didn’t go to Springfield?”

  “I went to Belle Star,” I said, “which was named after the infamous outlaw who was born in Missouri, not too far from here, in 1848. She hung out with Jesse James and the Younger Brothers, and was shot in the back and died at the age of forty. Clearly, whoever chose the name for the town couldn’t spell worth a damn.”

  “Why do you happen to know this, Miss Zane Grey?” asked Estelle.

  “I spent several hours with Albert Quivers, that’s why. I also know how many catfish can thrive in
a nine-acre pond, the misfortunes that befell the Pipple family and caused them to sell their property, and that Mrs. Quivers is worthless when it comes to standing guard all night because she falls asleep in the glider. Anything going on in town?”

  “Not really,” Ruby Bee said reluctantly. “Whatever’s going on at the county old folks’ home is close to being done. The only workmen out there are plumbers and electricians. The guard and his dog are still there, though.”

  Estelle waggled her finger. “Don’t forget the plaque.”

  Ruby Bee frowned at the interruption, then said, “They put it up a day or two ago, but nobody knows what to make of it. It’s a fancy brass thing that says ‘The Stonebridge Foundation.’”

  I thought about it for a moment. “Sounds like a corporate retreat or a research facility. How disappointing for Mrs. Jim Bob; I’m sure she’s been praying for something scandalous so she can get her knickers in a twist. And poor Brother Verber won’t get to stand on the road, thumping his Bible and preventing sinners from darkening the threshold of eternal damnation.”

  Estelle resumed nursing her glass of sherry, and Ruby Bee went into the kitchen to dish me up a plate of fried pork chops and summer squash. I idly watched customers straggle in for beer and pretzels. Bilious Buchanon put a quarter in the juke box and ordered a pitcher so he could literally cry in his beer. A married couple I knew from high school days glanced coldly at me before settling in a booth for their version of a romantic night on the town. I’d arrested two of their sons for public drunkenness a couple of months earlier, so I wasn’t surprised when they didn’t gesture for me to join them. After a while, most of the booths were occupied, as well as the stools. Conversations concerned the weather, road construction, the weather, the parking problem at the livestock barn, and the weather. The major point of controversy was whether or not it would rain any time soon. I wondered what they’d do if they woke up some morning and discovered there was no weather. Discuss it at length, I concluded.